San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
TRADING BOOKS FOR RIFLE: UKRAINE TEACHER NOW SERVES AS SOLDIER
Volunteer chose to enlist day before Russia invaded
Just over a year ago, Yulia Bondarenko’s days were full of lesson plans, grading and her students’ seventh-grade hormones.
When Russian missiles shattered that routine and Russian troops threatened her home in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, Bondarenko, 30, volunteered to fight back, despite her lack of experience, the grave risk to her life and Ukraine’s apparently impossible odds.
“I never held a rifle in my hands and never even saw one up close,” Bondarenko said. “In the first two weeks, I felt like I was in a fog. It was just a constant nightmare.”
For weeks, she had followed the ominous news of Russian troops massing on Ukraine’s border and decided Feb. 23 to enlist as a reservist. The next day, the largest land war in Europe since World War II began.
As explosions shook Kyiv, Bondarenko took the subway to report for duty, uncertain if the recruiting office would take her without finished paperwork or a fitness exam.
But in the chaotic swirl of volunteers, officers asked no questions. They handed her a rifle and 120 bullets, and assigned her to a unit expecting to fight in urban combat if the Russian army broke into the capital. She was only one recruit in a huge influx of volunteers who swelled the size of Ukrainian forces — from about 260,000 soldiers to about 1 million today — and whose lives were transformed by the war.
In an interview, Bondarenko recalled the intense stress of those early days. Unaccustomed to the sounds of artillery, she said, she expected to be hit after every blast. She thought she would die.
Step by step, she learned how to be a soldier. Fellow volunteers showed her how to load, aim and fire her Kalashnikov rifle. They practiced trench fighting and other tactics.
During the weekslong battle for Kyiv, Bondarenko and about 150 other volunteers, almost all men, lived in a shopping mall, rotating through shifts at checkpoints in the city. She and two other women changed in a bathroom away from the men.
It was so cold at night that she slept hugging one of the other female soldiers. Slowly, sleeping bags, mats and warm uniforms turned up — and the unit eventually made it to a barracks.
Not all of the new recruits needed training. Eight years of fighting against Russiabacked separatists in eastern Ukraine has schooled a generation of Ukrainian soldiers — about 500,000 — in trench warfare on the plains, the type of combat dominating the war today. Many veterans returned to active service when the full-scale invasion began.
In the weeks after Ukraine fended off Russia from the capital, and as Russian troops retreated in the spring, the fighting shifted to the east. Bondarenko was offered a chance to resign or take a position in a desk job or as a cook. She overcame her fears and chose to stay with the infantry, living in the barracks and training for campaigns to come.
Like other recruits without experience, Bondarenko learned on the job: how to find trip wires and explosive traps, to duck for cover from shells, to provide first aid.
At first, she worried about her abilities. Bookish and shy, she never had any interest in the military, and knew nothing of weapons or wars. But on patrols and at the firing range, handling supplies and learning tactics, her confidence grew.
“It was pleasant when the guys said, ‘It’s working out with you,’” she said. “And they said, ‘I would go into battle with you.’”
Her brigade was stationed in a village south of Kyiv, where soldiers formed relationships with residents: They frequented a shop for snacks, and Bondarenko grew close to a local math teacher.
But at spring’s end, they had to say goodbye. They were heading toward the northeastern Kharkiv region, toward the front.
In the northeast, the unit came under near-constant Russian shelling over the summer. Bondarenko helped handle logistics and supplies to keep Ukraine’s forces fighting.
Of the many volunteers she has met over the past year, many were deployed to eastern Ukraine, where fighting is raging. She has not yet fired her rifle in combat, but if her platoon is sent to the front, she said, she feels ready to fight.
“I am an infantry soldier now,” she said.